Category: LinkedIn

It keeps happening and it is truly astoundingly annoying – and on their part amateurish. What am I talking about?

I’m talking about Recruitment agents who contact me via LinkedIn. It’s nice to get 2/3 LinkedIn emails (InMails they call ’em) per week asking about my availablity. Alas more than two thirds of them are simply wasting their own time in composing and sending me the e-mail. Why? Simply put if they had even bothered to take a cursory glance at the publically available portion of my Experience section they would quickly realise that I am not suitable and they shouldn’t even bother contacting me.

Yet still they do, and I’m pretty sure very very few of them actually look at my profile in any way shape or form until I reply and register interest back.

It seems a mass market e-mail is used to target individuals who have group sets of key words that match an open position, the e-mail is then personalised by LinkedIn’s Recruiter system from where such ‘mailshots’ can be sent. So it’s just the same old way as always – recruitment agencies randomly bombing people with e-mails/InMails in the hope that the needle in the {filtered} haystack responds.

Like this:

This is part II, for details of the scam currently playing on LinkedIn please read part I first by clicking here

Thanks to my kind readers I was able to send 3 bait emails to various ‘Global Resume’ e-mail addresses (USA, UK and Gulf) used by the Resume/CV & cover letter review services spamming on LinkedIn. I used a dummy name, email account and attached a fairly decent copy of my own CV with some alterations to change identity and employer names.

Within 24 hours they resulted in the responses below [yellow highlighting shows the difference between the replies]:

USA ResponseUK response

Notice that the email response from both the UK and USA email addresses are 90% similar, I didn’t bother posting the Gulf response but it was the same as the UK one except the prices were in US dollars.

The same chap ‘Conrad’ responds to emails at all the addresses used. They all refer to localised versions of their review site ‘shops’ from where they encourage you to purchase their extortionate services. 60 Day Money Back Guarantee eh? So who is providing that guarantee – there is no legitimate corporate or business entity to back up this claim.

The localised ‘shop’ links are as follows (please DO NOT follow any of these links and pay for any services):

I also noticed the emails I got back orginated from .org SMTP domains, they were:

review@resumes-uk.org [also cc’d to review2@resumes-uk.org]

review@resumewritingusa.org

Within the UK email the author, Conrad, makes a reference to Résumé-UK.com (the primary scam website which gets you to pay for services). It is literally a spiderweb of work, but once you know their system it becomes straightforward. All of the domains were registered from Feb 2013 onwards.

Since the replies on March 6th I didn’t do anything, I am tempted to spend some money to see exactly what (if anything) they provide, but my guess is the money goes into a black hole.

Interestingly…

I got a follow up email from the .Gulf. address, i’ve posted it below. It states one of her colleagues did an ‘extensive review’ of my CV? LoL just like CVsite this is pure nonsense, a lie. They want to help me succeed in my career? Another lie, all they want it is my money and to laugh all the way to the bank.

Chasing e-mail

Perhaps it’s an April Fools joke which I didn’t get(!)

PLEASEdon’t fall for this scam, so far LinkedIn have not responded to my complaints either directly or via twitter/facebook, and neither have they made any efforts (that I am aware of) to warn people. Perhaps it is because I do not have a paid account. Stay safe.

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Zulfs blog where you'll find bits of random info on tech, cars, trading and religion. All mashed up MongoDB style! Just to be very CLEAR all opinions are my own personal viewpoints and should not be taken as gospel without verification. Happy Kindling.

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About

Zulfs blog where you'll find bits of random info on tech, cars, trading and religion. All mashed up MongoDB style! Just to be very CLEAR all opinions are my own personal viewpoints and should not be taken as gospel without verification. Happy Kindling.